Many heavy equipment machines, such as those used in the construction, agriculture, earth-moving, oil extraction, and mining industries, include hydraulic circuits that utilize hydraulic accumulators. For example, such heavy equipment machines can include implements that are operated through the use of hydraulic cylinders or actuators and hydraulic accumulators. The continuous use of the hydraulic accumulators during operation of the heavy equipment machine can cause wear over time. It is desirable to detect the health of the hydraulic accumulator in order to schedule maintenance and plan for machine inoperability.
Some prior techniques required physically connecting a pressure gauge to a gas valve of the hydraulic accumulator, when the heavy equipment machine is stopped and the fluid in the hydraulic accumulator is not pressurized, in order to detect the health of the hydraulic accumulator. While effective, this technique presented challenges when the hydraulic accumulator was positioned in a location that was difficult to access.
In efforts to reduce down time of the heavy equipment machines during health detection, some more current techniques collect data from hydraulic devices while in the field. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,120,523 ('523 patent) discloses the utilization of operating parameters of hydraulic cylinders for predicting service intervals. While the '523 patent monitors piston travel distance, pressure and temperature of the working fluid, the monitoring of additional parameters of the hydraulic cylinders can provide more accurate and real-time measurements. Accordingly, improvements in the monitoring of hydraulic accumulator health, performance, and remaining useful life continue to be sought.